Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

KentuckyFC writes "Transcranial magnetic stimulation involves placing a human in a rapidly changing magnetic field powerful enough to induce eddy currents in the brain. Focus the field in the visual cortex, for example, and the induced eddys cause the subject to 'see' lights that appear as discs and lines. Move the field within the cortex and the subject sees the lights move too. Physicists have calculated that the fields associated with certain kinds of multiple lightning strikes are powerful enough to induce the same kind of visual hallucinations in anybody unlucky enough to be within 200 meters or so. These fields ought to induce hallucinations that would take the form of luminous lines and balls that float in front of the subject's eyes, an effect that would explain observations otherwise classed as ball lightning, say the scientists."

I looked on youtube [youtube.com]. The second hit seems to be missing for me, my browser is reporting the swf as not found. The third one in Saudi Arabia appears to be the lightning moving along the power lines. I suspect that these guys in TFA could be right, but that the term ball lightning is ambiguous, referring to several different phenomena.

I think the third video in that list you are talking about showing "BL" in Saudi Arabia is very important for everyone to see [youtube.com]. How many times have we heard of people having BL sightings around power lines or "following power lines"? Frequently! And what does that video show? NOT BL! It's just arcing between two of the power lines that's traveling down the line Jacob's-ladder-like, probably due to wind. Was it initiated by lightning? Maybe, but it is not BL at all. People trust their senses and their assumptions way too much.

Yet what you provide as proof against its existence is actually just a statement about electricity.... Remember, electricity follows the path of least resistance and copper in power lines provides far less resistance than does air, so perhaps it's just able to "live" longer with power lines around. I've got a friend who once saw what he assumes was ball lightning and he wasn't remotely close to power lines(he was in the woods) but also wasn't remotely close to a camera. He only mentioned it made a crackling

You would if you could:
* Provide the requested citation
* Post a link to a goatse domain showing a guy with his balls on fire (this is for all intents and purposes considered 'ball lightning')
* Find a way to blame another/. poster
* Combine any or all of the above into a super-mega-post

I didn't expect anyone to take my comment seriously.

Well, that happens around here so often that they really need a moderation tag for "Whoosh!"

Surely you have heard of Google and YouTube... search for "ball lightning video" and you will find bunches. I suspect with some digging, you will find some that were shown on various science/weather shows on TV as well.
The article authors seem to have overlooked the video evidence - unless they can come up with another (erroneous) theory claiming that videotaping such an electrical effect and watching the video later causes the same effect as experiencing it.

1. Researchers claim that their theory could possibly explain some ball lightning sightings as hallucinations.
2. There are videos of possible ball lightnings.
--------
3. Therefore, the researchers must be wrong.

Formulated more formally (note that I exaggerated the positions for the sake of readability):

1. There is at least one ball lightning sighting that has been caused by a lightning-induced hallucination.
2. There is at least one ball lightning that was captured on video.
-

1986-ish Radio Electronics magazine had a study where they took pics of ball lightning that originated from arcing around a generator onboard an old engine on a train. I will mention this since I know it's brought up further down in the discussion, the ball lightning only *originated* from the arcing, it however did NOT just follow the power lines like a Jacob's Ladder might but rather had quite the mind of its own, scaring the bejesus out of the researcher when it entered the cabin of the train and began t

That said, I do have a VR device that induces the feelings of motion in the brain through electrodes(1 on the forehead and 2 behind each ear on the "mastoid process") that when cranked high will induce visual hallucinations for a second or two...but they wouldn't make me think I was seeing ball lightning.

Interesting! What 'VR device' is this? I haven't heard of inducing feelings of motion with such things... do want more info! I'm getting a mental picture of Eight from the movie 9.

Also, do these visual hallucinations remain stationary with respect to the world around you, when you move your head/eyes? Bright lights on their own can cause spots in front of your eyes, but since they're fixed w.r.t. your field of vision, they're easy to tell apart from actual entities in the world. I'd imagine that if these

The device is called MotionWare and was released as a prototype about 10 years ago. The inventor had a hard time getting it to the fast track so the 100 prototypes he made are all that exist. It uses electro-vestibular stimulation to generate the sense of motion(though only through one "channel"[the inner ear] of the three, at least, from which we sense motion[inner ear, proprioceptive and visual]).

Anyway, the hallucinations/visuals seemed to be generated right around my forehead where the front electrode m

Indeed. Heck, my great grandmother used to tell the story of the time ball lightning broke the living room window, did a circle around the room and went back out, leaving scorch marks on the ceiling.
But then, it's a story from the great grandmother, so take it for what it's worth.

Absurd, you'd might as well also claim the Fox Alien Autopsy video and all the various close encounters of the blurred kind on Youtube aren't explained by the fact that we now understand things like kanashibari. The videos of so called ball lightning out there are far away, shaky, defocused and about as convincing as Chupacabra photos in the Weekly World News.

Look, I'm sorry to piss on everybody's parade, but its time to relegate ball lightning to its rightful place in history alongside phrenology and N-rays [wikipedia.org]. The invention of the CCD and the associated UNBELIEVABLE proliferation of personal digital imaging devices over the past decade means that virtually everyone has a camera in their pocket at all times now. If the phenomenon of ball lightning existed at all, we should be seeing like one multiply reported HIGHLY CONVINCING video a week uploaded to the internet showing this. In fact, the number of ball lightning sightings and recordings over the past who knows how many years has pretty much stayed constant. If ball lightning exists at all, it's in the heads of observers, either as a result of a terrified mi-d thunderstorm hallucination or a result of some magnetic field induced phosphene as reported in this new paper.

If ball lightning were an actual physical phenomenon, the number of video observations of it should have skyrocketed over the past 10 years along with the availability of personal digital imaging devices in the same way that once Red Sprites and Blue Jets were first reliably observed with very high speed video in 1994, observational replication around the world was practically IMMEDIATE [youtube.com] and widespread.

Not so fast, what do most people do when a severe storm blows in? They put their camera away and run for shelter. Unlike Sprites and Jets, ball lightning is typically small and often seen close to the ground such that you won't capture anything useful from miles away.

Most of those digital cameras out there are in the possession of people who have no idea how to take a well focused non-blurry and non-shaky picture or video with them in even the best conditions. In addition, they're mostly cheap cellphone cameras with barely adequate lenses that are just about good enough to take a few snapshots while out with friends. The odds that they would get a decent picture of a light source that isn't just a big blur and doesn't look like a reflection from the lens are nearly nil.

The key to getting good images of sprites was to figure out a few places where they were nearly sure to be seen and to get ready in advance with high end cameras fixed to good solid tripods. A bunch of amateurs with their disposable Kodak cameras and cellphones still won't likely photograph a blue jet.

There are several easily reproducible phenomena that might be what people are describing or it might be something else (even magnetically induced eddy currents in the visual cortex).

There is actually little doubt that ball lightning is a real phenomenon. There is a great deal of doubt as to what it is. There are a number of crackpot theories that are almost certainly wrong. There are a few good theories that might be correct. It's hard to gather enough evidence to say which is better since we haven't narrowed down where one should go and under what conditions to reliably see any. It's down to sheer luck.

Oooh yeah I'm really religiously "jumping" to conclusions. We've had DECADES to flesh this one out and the evidence is not there. The onus is on the claimant to prove the phenomenon exists, not on me to prove it doesn't. The religious ones are the ones who take flaky anecdotes and blurry photos as real evidence and reject any skepticism about their credulity as "hasty". No.

Nah, I just have a plan. Change the cash on a regular basis until I can make it something less traceable. Drug dealers are good for more than just buying drugs from. They're some of the few people that you can change out $500 for another $500 without asking any questions. It's the aliens you can't avoid. They're in orbit watching your every move. Monitoring 7 billion people isn't that hard with the right equipment. They also monitor all the cattle, should they need to replenish their

Summary: Physicists have calculated that the fields associated with certain kinds of multiple lightning strikes are powerful enough to induce the same kind of visual hallucinations in anybody unlucky enough to be within 200 meters or so.

Question: Is how effective Tin foil might be at stopping the hallucinations. They haven't stopped since I started wearing my hat, I'm beginning to doubt they are hallucinations like my doctor tells me.

I'm not a doctor, but I predict undesirable side-effects from the inter

For those that suffer from migraines, these lights and balls should be familiar as "aura", or scintilating scotoma. For migraineurs, these lights last longer because they are caused by changing bloodflow to the occipital lobe over a longer period of time. It most assuredly activates the same neurons that this magnetic stimulation of neurons produces.
I would not be surprised of reports of concomitant parosmia, or olfactory hallucinations, with the display of ball-lightning caused by magnetic fields.

Also, the higher altitude regions, such as mountains, have higher electromagnetic energy due to being closer to the turbulent atmosphere. It's possible that this could result in hallucinations of all sorts, and explain the many mystic experiences of such regions.

If these are equivalent to migraine auras, I'm very skeptical that they can explain ball lightning. I've periodically experienced migraines and what doctors assure me is an aura preceding it. I don't know about others' subjective experience with auras, but while it's an annoying visual artifact covering some or all of my visual field, at no point did I ever perceive it as some localized 'ball' with anything like a defined position, distance relative to me, etc. as ball lightning is often described. It was always something I perceived as an internal static that makes my vision mostly useless, not some external object.

Again, there could just be subjective difference, but I've never heard a fellow migraine sufferer describe an aura as some ball of light.

For those that suffer from migraines, these lights and balls should be familiar as "aura", or scintilating scotoma. For migraineurs, these lights last longer because they are caused by changing bloodflow to the occipital lobe over a longer period of time. It most assuredly activates the same neurons that this magnetic stimulation of neurons produces.

I would not be surprised of reports of concomitant parosmia, or olfactory hallucinations, with the display of ball-lightning caused by magnetic fields.

I'll second this; it pretty much matches my experience too.
My auras are an interesting experience (or would be if they didn't signify several hours worth of misery). It feels like a portion of my vision simply "isn't there"... not "blacked out" or anything, but just gone. I'm wondering if there's any relationship to the sensation of blindness.

I would not be surprised of reports of concomitant parosmia, or olfactory hallucinations, with the display of ball-lightning caused by magnetic fields.

That's unlikely as the reported experiment are focused on the visual cortex in the occipital region (Visual region stimulated => Only visual hallucination).But theoretically by focusing on other sensory regions, other kind of hallucination could be produced.

That's an interesting theory (and... erm... interestingly phrased) but what do you have to back it up?

Having had migraines and accompanying "auras", I can safely say that there's no resemblance between the visual distortions from a pending or in-progress migraine and any external visual phenomena (never mind lightning or ball lightning). The other migraine sufferers ("migraineurs"? really?) I've known can confirm this.

While I am the last to rely on anecdotal evidence, it's an improvement over no evide

I would buy into the "may"... in some cases. I also expect there may be more than one phenomenon that is called ball lightning.

I used to live in a house that had plastic dome light shade in the room lights. After the light was turned off and they cooled down they would pop. That pop would create a Piezo generated electric field that would cause me to see a bright flash of light that wasn't there. It may have caused others to see ghosts. There have been reports of large amounts of geo-piezo activity in

I don't remember the last time I ran into the Look Around You [wikipedia.org] series. It's been awhile. If you don't know about it, or haven't seen any of it in some time, you should get an inoculation. Try this [wittysparks.com].

In an attempt to add something useful to this discussion, I don't know what's more awesome - this theory, or ball lightning. I'm a fan of both!

I've often wondered why I "see" spinning disks (as the article described) when on road trips or on hot days. It's very odd to explain, the best analogy I could come up with was a "Video game style targeting system"... But seeing it explained as a hallucination makes sense.

Everybody who ever has experienced any of these visual
disturbances should be aware of the
concept of form constants [wikipedia.org]

I think I may actually know the one you are talking about.
It's like leapord spots spiraling inward, and they tend to
be darker than the background. Solution? Drink more water. No kidding.
However, by the time you see them it's usually too late.

Taken from a comment on the TFA's commentary, and it proves a point. I've always wondered why we tend to take scientific recreations in a lab and automatically apply them to phenomena to the world outside the lab as "absolutely the truth". Are we that desperate for a logical-sounding answer that we'll immediately say "these phenomena were reproduced in this lab using these specific resources and therefore this must automatically happen every time similar phenomena happens under uncontrolled circumstances"

"Lightning electromagnetic pulse induced transcranial magnetic stimulation of phosphenes in the visual cortex is concluded to be a plausible interpretation of a large class of reports on luminous perceptions during thunderstorms."

just plausible. It's the editors that decided to publish it as if it were accepted fact.

I noticed that the majority of actual images of ball lightning that Google turns up fall into one of three categories: Illustrations, pictures of scientific experiments, or variations [google.com] on [google.com] this [google.com] picture [google.com].

Though I do think that this description of ball lightning [bbc.co.uk] sounds as viable as the TMS theory. (Summary: A lightning strike heats fractal silicon "fluff balls" on the Earth's surface which can burn violently and hold themse

There are a few phenomenon that are known to cause things like ball lighting.

St. Elmo's Fire, for example, can look like a floating ball. Not usually, but it can, if it forms on an unseen point like a tree branch.

There's probably other forms of ionization that we simple don't know about. There's plenty of ways to generate things that look likeball lightning is supposed to look, you can do it in your microwave. (Although that method does not seem likely to occur in nature.)

Scientists are naturally curious people that want to understand how things work. From all accounts, ball lightning sounds like a plausible natural phenomenon, unlike other mysterious popularly reported things like ghosts, bigfoot, or aliens. Furthermore, if some reports are true, ball lightning has some very interesting properties, and understanding the physics behind it could have big implications.

"Ball" lightning is essentially impossible. Electricity cannot behave that way, as far as we know. And yet, many people claim to have seen it. So either it exists, and we'd like to learn how, or it doesn't, in which case we'd like to learn what those people are actually seeing.

Either the hallucinations can be transmitted via video too, or a piece of this airplane [youtube.com] caught fire and fell off.... Looks like "ball lightning" anyway - whether it is or not I leave to the physicists.

I'm not a neurologist, so school me. But look, we all know when we are having ocular hallucinations. Press on your closed eyes for a while and open them. There's no perception of depth to it; no sense of "oh, that hallucination looks like it's hovering over that hill 30 meters away." Now, these are allegedly affecting the visual cortex directly, but still...

How would a magnetic field hallucination within the visual cortex create a sense of binocular depth, and consistently track to a static location in

Hallucinations only appear to have 'real locations' if your brain is generated them, aka, you're mentally ill.(1) The eyes or the visual cortex generating them is pretty easy to figure out. Moving your head or eyes would, due, make the object move in sync. So I have trouble seeing anyone getting fooled by that at all.

If you only see if for a second or so, sure, you can get fooled...we've all thought we saw something out of the corner of our eye, or opened a door and perceive

It would be helpful if people actually read reports of ball lightning sightings before they jump to conclusions.

Is this a possible explanation of some ball lightning sightings? Well it could be.

Does it explain them all? Definitely not. Ball lightning has been observed many times to do lots of damage. It has also been observed in areas where there has been no lightning or storm activity at all. Including sunny days. Read up on it then make up your own mind. This is not a simple phenomenon. No one explanation seems to explain it all and perhaps there are multiple physical mechanisms to create the reported glowing balls of light with wildly different properties. I read a monograph some years back which detailed about 2 dozen different scientific theories and many good witness accounts showing the mismatch to each of these theories. Well there have been even more theories since, each of them compelling and reasonable... and contradictory. The real problem of course is that the data is from witnesses, it is not repeatable so the theories cannot be tested against each other.

I saw ball lightning from about 6 to 10 inches away, eye level, then it slowly dropped to my knees, then slowly back to eye level.It hovered a second, then shot to the other room and blew the base board off the wall.The nails that held on the base board were melted, but the wood was fine./I still swear it was sentient and it communicated.//The other room was the only safe place I could think of, for it to hit.///Yeah, maybe it DID influence my brain waves.....

A ball went from the warehouse floor in to the office area (I believe it went through a wall to do this) and stopped above an employee's head, where it dissipated suddenly.
I just can't see this entirely being a hallucination if it can be tracked with your eyes.

Actually, this ability to be "tracked" is common in color/light optical hallucinations that are produced in the "front end" of your brain's visual processing, as opposed to more life-like and realistic (i.e. a deceased relative) visual hallucinations that occur father down the image-processing pipeline.

You can demonstrate this on your own: Look just to the side of a small, bright light source for a few seconds, then look away, ideally towards a blank wall or other plain surface. (Don't stare into the sun or a laser or anything... I don't want people responding with "OMG now I'm blind!") If you did not focus directly on the light source to begin with, the "echo" of the light should appear slightly off center. As you move your eyes and/or head to try and focus on the echo, it will move away as the spot is fixed with respect to your retina, giving you the illusion of being able to "track" this visual phenomenon across a room or other space.

unless the ball is tracking your eyes.See, if it is a hallucinations in your visual cortex it would move with your eyes.

Same thing as with floaters which you can sometimes see when the light is right, it is like it is moving around the room and you somehow try to follow it with your eyes, while it is actually following your eye movement instead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floater

You haven't looked at a bright light before, have you? The dot will move to anywhere you are looking, and slowly disappear.

If he saw a flash, and then looked over at his coworker, and kept his focus there, it would appear to be exactly that. The question then is, what was the flash? It could have been anything. A reflection of the sun, a spark of some sort. Did they do any sort of welding in the warehouse? There's a good reason you're suppose to wear a welding mask, and i

Just because it has been modded up, I'd like to respond to the troll: on what basis exactly would you exclude funding for this research? Obviousness? Clearly not, because no one had any idea what a modulating magnetic field would do to the inner workings of the brain. Uselessness? Can't see how you arrived at that conclusion, considering that it indicates a way to manipulate how the brain processes inputs, which has a ton of potential application.

No, the only reason that this is research unworthy of funding is that it doesn't immediately yield a product, which is the lamest, most short-sighted reason for which to deny a grant request.

No, the reason that this research is unworthy of funding is that the researchers are the sort who would turn it into a search for the causes of ball lightning, or think that we don't know what causes it yet.

Funding is supposed to go to people with competence to carry out science. These goobers failed.